Guyanese grandpa among NY lottery winners

New York (Newsday) -Natives of Albania, Guyana and Ireland were among the eight New York Lottery winners to receive ceremonial checks totaling $13.5 million at a ceremony yesterday in Manhattan, lottery officials said.
Here are their stories, according to a news release from New York Lottery:
While on a snack break from his job as a Rockefeller Center security guard, Rafik Sulaiman, 59, says he scratched his King’s Ransom ticket and found he was a $3 million top prize winner.
“I saw the little coin symbol and then the word ‘Jackpot’ underneath,” said the Guyana native, now living in Astoria, “so I took it back to the store to double check.” That would be Pronto Pizza on West 48th Street in Manhattan, where he bought the $10 ticket from a vending machine.
Sulaiman, a married father of three and grandfather of five, opted for a lump sum net payment of $1,517,654.
As for uses for his winnings, he said, “My only plan is to get the money and then decide.”
— Euglen Muslli, who came to New York City six years ago from Albania, experienced a swift and surprising fulfillment of the American dream.
“It was my dream to have money; a lot of money to spend on things I want,” said Muslli, 21, a self-taught electrician’s helper.
The Bay Ridge resident bought scratch-off tickets for the $1,500 a Week for Life at Yogi, at 86-04 on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn.
Scratching his tickets, he said, “I saw that word ‘Life’ and thought, ‘Whoa. You’re a millionaire!’”

Guyanese security guard wins US$3M New York lottery jackpot  May 31, 2014
  (NBC 4) – A U.S.-based Guyanese working as a security guard at the Rockefeller Center in New York, who bought a scratch-off lottery ticket on his lunch break, has won the US$3 million jackpot.
According to an NBC news report, lottery officials said Rafik Sulaiman, a 58-year-old father of three and immigrant from Guyana, bought the US$10 ticket from a vending machine at a Pronto Pizza on 48th Street in Manhattan, New York.
He is one of eight winners who were presented with prizes by New York Lottery representatives on Thursday.
Sulaiman said he bought the only ticket in the vending machine and took it back to work, where he scratched it off to find he had won the jackpot.
“I went back to the guy to verify,” NBC quoted him as saying.
Sulaiman, who lives in Astoria, finished his work day and went home as usual.
He said he has not decided what he will do with his winnings, a lump sum payment of more than US$1.5 million. He isn’t quitting his job, though.
“I’m just going to hang low,” he said.